In such particle beam microscopes, X-ray radiation is generated by means of a focused particle beam generated by the particle beam microscope in an object to be inspected, wherein a spectrum of the X-ray radiation is recorded by the X-ray detector. From an analysis of the recorded X-ray spectrum, it is possible to deduce a composition of the object at the location of the incident particle beam. The particle beam microscope can be designed as an electron microscope, in particular a transmission electron microscope, or as an ion microscope, such as a helium gas field ion microscope, for example.
It has been found in conventional particle beam microscopes of this type that the X-ray spectra obtained during a reasonable measurement time have an excessively small number of detected X-ray events in order to determine the composition of the object at the location of the impinging particle beam with a desired significance.